Artificial intelligence giant OpenAI has taken a revolutionary step into the world of e-commerce. The company has announced its “Instant Checkout” feature, which allows users to shop directly from the ChatGPT chat interface. This integration, initially for Etsy and Shopify sellers, will shape the future of online shopping.
A new shopping experience with ChatGPT!
With this feature, users who encounter an Etsy product or an item from a Shopify seller while browsing ChatGPT can now complete their purchase in seconds, without being redirected to an external site.
- Seamless Shopping: If a user has already saved their card information for a ChatGPT subscription, they won’t need to repeat this process when purchasing something from Etsy or Shopify. This will dramatically speed up and simplify the shopping experience.
- Agentic Commerce Protocol: This revolutionary feature is powered by the core technology called “Agentic Commerce Protocol,” developed by OpenAI in partnership with Stripe. This protocol provides an intermediary commerce framework that allows users to transact directly and securely with a seller.
OpenAI’s move is more than just a payment integration. ChatGPT already has over 700 million weekly active users, and according to the company, a “large portion” of these questions are already related to shopping and commerce.
- Users use ChatGPT as a shopping assistant for everything from specific product searches like “finding black boots” to more general, purchase-requiring tasks like “planning a birthday party for 12 kids.”
- OpenAI pulls product recommendations from across the web and specifically states that its results are ranked by relevance to the user and are not influenced by any partnerships. This promises a fair and organic shopping experience for users.
OpenAI initially chose to use this Agentic Commerce Protocol for e-commerce, but the company’s vision goes beyond that. By open-sourcing the framework, OpenAI allows merchants to build integrations faster and developers to explore new use cases to facilitate other types of purchases or payments beyond e-commerce.
This development is poised to play a central role in the future of e-commerce, transforming ChatGPT into not just an information engine but also a powerful transaction platform.
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